Whitney North Seymour Jr.

Whitney North Seymour Jr. (July 7, 1923 – June 29, 2019), known to friends as Mike Seymour,^[1][2] was an American politician and attorney from New York City. Born to a prominent family, Seymour graduated from Princeton University and Yale Law School and served in the United States Army during World War II. He served in the New York State Senate from 1966 to 1968 and as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1970 to 1973.

As U.S. Attorney, Seymour prosecuted a number of high-profile organized crime and corruption cases. A moderate Republican, Seymour unsuccessfully sought a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968, and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 1982. Seymour was an attorney for many years with the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, but left in the early 1980s to form a smaller law firm. In 1986, he was appointed as independent counsel to investigate former Reagan White House official Michael Deaver, and successfully secured a perjury conviction the next year.

Seymour co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentalist group, in 1970. As a civic leader in New York, he served on a number of boards, and played an important role in the Municipal Art Society's push for passage of the city's 1965 Landmarks Law. Seymour wrote three books and, in later life, co-wrote a one-act play that was performed off-Broadway. He died in 2019 at age 95.